Obama skates while Right fumes

On Time magazine’s The Page, Mark Halperin compiled a list of things Obama had done that “Clinton would have gotten hammered for,” including the new Cuba policy and meeting with the Dead.

Beyond the move toward a new middle — one closer to the center-left — the sound of silence also reflects the times in which Obama is governing, where the challenges are more tangible and urgent.

Having gay families over to the White House for the Easter Egg Roll tends to be eclipsed, for example, when the U.S. government is effectively taking over major American car companies.

“He has the benefit of nobody paying attention to anything but the economy,” said Stuart Stevens, a longtime GOP strategist and author. “You have the economic equivalent of the country being at war. Nobody on Sept. 20, 2001, was particularly focused on cultural issues, either.”

What’s more, the weakness of the Republican opposition has offered Obama a wider berth within which to operate.

“It’s like playing against a football team that is tired and hurt,” said Stevens. “Republicans don’t have a message or a messenger, and that makes Obama look a lot better.”

Alex Castellanos, a veteran GOP ad man, said the once-reliable wedge issues Republicans relied on simply don’t have the same impact anymore.

“The foundation of the new Republican house is not going to be built on the cultural war,” Castellanos said.

And then there is the nature of Obama’s victory last year.

“He had a coalition where he didn’t have to figure out how to get socially conservative voters behind him,” noted Carrick, a South Carolina native who has helped his clients navigate the culture wars. “He won with younger voters, Latinos, African-Americans and college-educated suburban voters. Those folks, for different reasons, just don’t care about some of these issues.”

For Begala, Carrick and other veterans of the Clinton era, it’s a far different set of circumstances than the relatively placid times of the ’90s, when peace and prosperity were at hand and the culture wars were central.

Jennifer Palmieri, a Clinton White House aide who now works at the Center for American Progress, recalled Obama’s appearance last month on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.”

“It struck me that Clinton would have really gotten knocked around for going to Hollywood and doing ‘The Tonight Show’ in the middle of the economic crisis,” Palmieri said. “But times are different now. People have bigger things to worry about. And this White House does a better job of staying out of the defensive crouch.”

When a handful of Republicans in Congress did try to go after Obama for doing the show — and also for taking the time that week to fill out an NCAA tournament bracket — their criticism largely fell on deaf ears.

And, similarly, when Obama slipped up on Leno and likened his bowling skills to those of a Special Olympics athlete, the comment barely survived a single news cycle.